Robert Hurst is the author of The Art of [Urban] Cycling, The Art of Mountain Biking: Singletrack Skills for All Riders, The Cyclist's Manifesto, Best Bike Rides Denver and Boulder, Road Biking Colorado's Front Range, Mountain Biking Colorado's San Juan Mountains: Durango and Telluride, and The Bicycle Commuter's Handbook.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it?

Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

-- Twain

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(NEWSER) – The US Department of Agriculture quietly announced on Friday that it had approved four Chinese poultry plants to ship processed chicken into the US. It’s no wonder it tried to sneak that news onto the eve of a long weekend, notes Bloomberg: China has a dodgy reputation for food safety, with repeated outbreaks of avian flu and the New York Times reports that Chinese-made chicken jerky recently killed hundreds of US dogs. So it’s a little worrying that these processing plants will operate without USDA inspectors, and the agency does not require point-of-origin labeling, so American consumers will not know where their chicken comes from.

“China is importing an increasing amount of crude, which is the most crucial issue for the country’s energy supply,” said Zhang during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference

And the most crucial issue for the world’s energy supply too.

One way to look at it is that we in the west are being outbid by people in Asia for available oil exports. The price is high because if it were any lower people would want to consume more than can currently be produced.

And it’s worth remembering why that happened– we didn’t have a choice. Global field production of crude oil (excluding natural gas liquids, which are not used as transportation fuel) stagnated at about 74 million barrels/day between 2005 and 2008. It is up a couple of million barrels since then, but more than 100% of this increase has been consumed by China alone, forcing the U.S. and other countries to reduce our oil consumption.

Global demand for coal is expected to grow to 8.9 billion tons by 2016 from 7.9 billion tons this year. China is expected to add about 160 new coal-fired plants to the 620 operating now, within four years. During that period, India will add more than 46 plants.

Former president Touré, who came to power in a coup in 1991, enjoyed US military and economic support for many years. According to figures released by the US government, Washington backed Mali with $138 million in 2011 and planned to increase its support to $170 million in 2012. A joint military manoeuvre between US forces and the Mali army took place in January.

The new ruler is by no means unknown to the US government. Sanogo took part in language training courses in Texas from August 2004 until February 2005. In 2007, he was schooled by the US Secret Service and trained as an infantry officer in Georgia for five months.

It is quite possible that Sanogo’s coup was arranged in cooperation with the US government. However, imperialist forces will not be happy with the result because Mali’s north is still in the hands of the insurgents. A future UN intervention supported by the US cannot be excluded, because for Washington, Mali is particularly important from the standpoint of containing Chinese influence in Africa.

Just as the international intervention in Libya was aimed in part at denying China access to North African oil, a military intervention in Mali in cooperation with the US would target Chinese influence in the country.

This influence has grown in recent years. Chinese direct investments in Mali increased 300-fold from 1995 to 2008. Mali ranks with Zambia, South Africa and Egypt among African countries where China has made its largest investments.

In addition to the United States, France also has an intense interest in its former colony, and is just waiting to “rescue” the country’s cultural heritage with a military intervention backed by the UN Security Council. ….